DVDizzy Forum

Kevin Lima revealed in a new interview that even though they always wanted a pop artist to be the songwriter for the film, they initially offered the position to Peter Gabriel who turned them down. Other candidates were Sting and Phil Collins. To decide which of the two, they brought a group of singers into a room and had them sing songs by these two artists. They did this because they wanted to hear how these songs would sound like performed by a different singer as typically in a musical the songs are not sung by the songwriter. They gravitated towards Phil Collins because of his distinct percussion sound. Because their film was also set in Africa, they wanted to differentiate it from The Lion King which had a more vocal/chant-like sound. The other reason they went with Phil Collins was because his lyrics felt more immediate and emotional to them. Due to Kevin Lima feeling that a character like Tarzan singing an 'I Want' song would not come off as believable, the original plan was to have Phil Collins sing the songs that were meant to represent Tarzan and the apes and have the human characters sing like they do in a traditional musical which also would have highlighted the contrast between the two worlds.

What a relief that they went with Collins. Whether they would have made the characters sing or not, I would have been fine with it. I'm very much satisfied with the direction they went with. To see Tarzan belt while climbing with the gorillas "Power to be strong" would have been something else.

The score done by Mancina is lovely from this film.

Well, it`s funny how they were considering Sting, despite how he at least got his chance with the following feature Despite how it`s still a pity that most of his work was discarded for Kingdom of the Sun.